PAGCOR Reveals New Licensing Plans for Online Gambling

The gaming regulator of the Philippines has made a new release regarding their plans for licensing online gambling. Calling them ‘offshore’ gaming, the information released so far is unlikely to go down well with game operators.

Only last month, the PAGCOR (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation) made the announcement that it is going to start the licensing process for online gaming. While that news was taken in well by the industry, there are a number of caveats that were published earlier this week just as the PAGCOR started accepting letters of intent and applications for these licences. The application will be for an offshore betting license.

Applicants and those who are likely to get them are still prohibited from accepting gamers and customers from the country. That means, even if an operator does become a member of the POGO (Philippine offshore gaming operators), they are not allowed to take in customers from the Philippines itself. That also includes Filipino citizens travelling abroad as well as foreign nationals in the Philippines on vacation or work. While that seems restrictive, the real kicker is that a POGO licensed company cannot also accept any gamers from countries that have banned their citizens from participating in online gambling. That rules out almost all of the Asian continent.

CEZA is another issue that will have to be dealt with. Under the CEZA (Cagayan Economic Zone Authority), stands a large volume of the online gambling industry in Asia. Now that POGO has been introduced, it remains to be seen whether or not CEZA sites will also have to apply for and register under POGO. As of now the main intentions behind the PAGCOR move seems to be that it does in fact want to centralize and integrate all gaming and licensing under one body, making it easier to regulate.